Court 13 withdraws charges of rebellion and sedition against dozens of suspects after a year of threat

He acknowledges that does not have jurisdiction as judge to investigate these offences after months of having investigated them

Josep Casulleras Nualart and Josep Rexach Fumanya

8 OCT 2018 12:52

After more than a year maintaining the threat of chages of rebellion and sedition against dozens of people, many of whom are senior officials of the Generalitat, investigating court No. 13 of Barcelona has confirmed that it has ceased to investigate for these two offences the forty-odd people chaged with having had something to do with the October 1 [referendum] and the independence process. This has been confirmed to VilaWeb by defence sources of some of those investigated. This investigation, which began before the one the Supreme is undertaking, has advanced in parallel, and has fueled with data obtained irregularly Pablo Llarena's investigation. Throughout this time, since the
beginning of 2017, Judge Juan Antonio Ramírez Sunyer has been summonsing dozens of people on various charges, ranging from rebellion and sedition to the revelation of secrets, embezzlement, contempt of court and prevarication. Now the charges of rebellion and sedition are upheld by the Supreme Court against the political prisoners, and the Spanish National Court against Major Trapero and deputy Laplana on charges of sedition and of belonging to a criminal organization.

After a voluble investigation which began with an investigation into all these different offences, the judge has witten a resolution, in which he indicated that he saw signs of embezzlement, 'among others.' It must be taken into account that to take this step, to go ahead with the proceedings, the judge has to justify that he has suspicions of offenses that surpass nine years of imprisonment. With rebellion and sedition he would have had enough as they entail sentences of thirty and fifteen years, respectively, but Ramírez only retained the offence of embezzlement, with up to eight years in prison. To reach the threshold of nine years, he says that he has reliable evidence that the embezzled amount is more than €250,000, which is an aggravating factor.

The lawyers of the affected parties asked the judge for an explanation, because suddenly they saw that the offences of rebellion and sedition of the investigation had disappeared. And now they have received the judge's response to the clarification: "At the moment and despite the fact that were this to be the case, the investigation would not be in the jurisdiction of this court, there were no indications of participation in these crimes [rebellion and sedition] of the people thus far investigated in this case". That is, not only does he claim that he does not now see signs of these crimes, but also says that he would not be the competent judge to investigate them. And despite this, he has spent months investigating them and entrusting reports to the Civil Guard about this suspicion of commission of offences.

An irregular investigation

This investigation started following a complaint lodged by the ultra-right Vox party against Lluis Salvadó, Carles Viver i Pi-Sunyer, Carles Puigdemont, Carles Mundó, Oriol Junqueras and former judge Santi Vidal, for statements by the latter in which, among other things, he claimed that the Generalitat had illegally obtained the Catalans' tax data. The TSJC dismissed the admission to the process of that complaint, but it sent it to court No. 13 to decide on those who had no parliamentary privileges, that is, Salvadó and Viver. Ramirez Sunyer did not hesitate and accepted the rebellion complaint, sedition (months later, these crimes were to made against the government), disclosure of secrets, embezzlement, contempt of court and prevarication.

Wheeas initially they were investigations of Santi Vidal's statements, they later led to investigations into state structures that were supposedly being prepared at the Institute for Self-Government Studies, and finally, the judge focused on the referendum. In May, the Civil Guard began to summons administration officials, civil servants and senior officials of the Generalitat. The judge denied any investigation into the referendum. A year later, he acknowledged that he was investigating it.